Color, Pattern, and the Retinal Cone Mosaic

Curr Opin Behav Sci. 2019 Dec:30:41-47. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2019.05.005. Epub 2019 Jul 5.

Abstract

Textbook trichromacy accounts for human color vision in terms of spectral sampling by three classes of cone photoreceptors. This account neglects entangling of color and pattern information created by wavelength-dependent optical blur (chromatic aberrations) and interleaved spatial sampling of the retinal image by the three classes of cones. Recent experimental, computational, and neurophysiological work is now considering color and pattern vision at the elementary scale of daylight vison, that is at the scale of individual cones. The results provide insight about rich interactions between color and pattern vision as well as the role of the statistical structure of natural scenes in shaping visual processing.

Keywords: color perception; computational models; cone mosaic; cones; psychophysics; spatial vision.